


lost boys

by Quilly



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Homestuck Secret Santa Exchange 2016, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Panic Attacks, melodramatic piece about boys being dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 09:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11987361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quilly/pseuds/Quilly
Summary: Gamzee's been accepted into a study-abroad program. Karkat looks forward to his emails, until one day, they just stop coming.





	lost boys

**Author's Note:**

> Another Secret Santa piece, this one for tumblr user magic-bonsai. I am still such a sappy Gamkar fool, so here, let me inflict it upon more corners of the internet.

Your name is Karkat Vantas and your best friend is leaving.

Gamzee was so excited when he found out he’d been accepted not only into the liberal arts school of his choice, but the study abroad program for freshmen, and you are the best friend of all time ever, so naturally you were also so happy for him. But right now, standing at the bus stop with the slightest snap of chill in the pre-dawn air, holding his suitcase and watching the mechanical monster rumble down the street…you’re feeling something less-than-happy.

“Bro,” Gamzee says, and you wake up from it, looking at him. He has a sad smile on his face, smudgy face paint from doing it in the dark in your bathroom mirror, curly hair all over the place, and your throat clenches. “Bro, don’t be all like that.”

“Like what?” you ask bad-temperedly. “I’m not like anything. Get down here, your hair is driving me crazy.”

“Ain’t that like usual,” he chuckles, bending down so you can run your hands through the coarse curls and pretend you’re trying to style it, not saving up the sensation for a while. The bus finally grinds to a halt, and a guy jumps out to start lifting up the luggage compartment doors. Gamzee straightens and you release his hair with reluctance. “Best get my muck chucked up in there, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” you grunt, and lug his bag to the curb, snarling at him that you’ve got it when he tries to help you. You are being ridiculous. The guy loading up the bags takes it from you and tosses Gamzee’s stuff into the bus, and for all the stupidest reasons, that makes your eyes sting along with your clenched throat. You march back onto the sidewalk, where Gamzee has his hands shoved into his hoodie pocket and is still smiling that slow, sad smile.

“I’ll email you, Karbro,” he says, and you loudly clear your throat. “All up as soon as I’ve got the wifis. Got me this new doohickey what’ll work.” He pats his pocket, where his new phone is stashed, and you nod. “Only’ll be gone a few months, best friend. Then I’ll be up where calling you nightly is a thing.”

“I know,” you say, and notice the bus line is getting far too short. “You’ve gotta go.”

“I gotta go,” he says, and opens his arms. Normally this is the part where you berate him for being so openly affectionate, where you say people can see and your cheeks go brick-red and he laughs. Normally. This isn’t normal, so you rush into them, squeezing him so tightly he oofs in surprise and then folds you up, crushing you back. Fourteen years you’ve been friends, never separated for longer than a couple weeks of vacation, and now he’s going all the way around the world. You swallow hard, and keep swallowing, actively fighting your tear ducts.

“Best friend,” Gamzee says gently, and his arms loosen, and you have to consciously make yourself let him go, standing back and scrubbing at your face with your sleeve. Gamzee cups your face when you put your arm down, leans his forehead against yours, and smiles. “Best friend, I hope you know how much I be all up in the feels for you, bro.”

“Love you too, idiot,” you say gruffly, then shove his shoulders. “Get out of here. Go annoy all of Europe and then come home.”

“Reckon I will,” Gamzee says cheerfully, then kisses your hair and slouches his way to the bus. You fold your arms up as tight as they’ll go and stand with the other mothers and family members waving goodbye, your eyes stinging hard. Gamzee sits, then climbs over the person sitting by the window to wave at you. He’s mouthing something, you can’t tell what, but it’s probably your name and a final goodbye. You grab your own arms as hard as you can.

Gamzee isn’t the only friend you say goodbye to, but that’s what happens when you are a chronic underachiever and only apply for the local community college because you knew it’d be easy to get in. What you’re gonna major in is up in the air. Your dad brings it up often and you fight and then you leave the house for a while, checking your email. It looks like Gamzee emailed you every half hour before his flight left New York, and even though you know he’s probably in a hostel with fifty other art majors partaking in the wonders of the old world, it makes you nervous when six days go by and he hasn’t emailed you at all.

You’re at Sollux’s house complaining about his warm beer when your phone dings and you lunge at it, and Sollux sniggers as you fumble with it and almost drop it.

“Did he finally email you?” John asks, and you nod, already tearing into the meat of Gamzee’s rambling to find out if he’s okay, if he’s enjoying himself and getting the cultural experience he always wanted. His capitalization is all over the place, but you’re old hat at deciphering his stupid typing quirk and make short work of it. As far as you can tell, he’s happy, he’s keeping busy and picking up odd bits and ends of the different languages of the countries he’s visiting, he likes all of his classmates and his professors, and he attached about four billion photos of himself in front of museums and wonders of the world and a few of his sketchbooks. He especially seems fond of the tiny doodle of you he made in the corner of one page, because he sent six blurry photos of it. You sigh hard through your nose and try to let the tension leach out of you.

“Well? Is he doing okay?” Jade asks, and Dave echoes, and Sollux re-echoes until you wake up enough to nod.

“He’s fine,” you say, and immediately start emailing back.

He’s going to be gone for three months. After six weeks the emails stop. You obsessively comb over his last few emails, noticing the fewer details, the lack of pictures, the…weirdness…of his tone. You hear less and less about the art and museums he’s experiencing and more and more of a small knot of his classmates that sneak out after curfew and visit local bars, how he goes with them, the tonal change that happens over the course of four emails in three weeks. When they stop altogether you email him every day for two weeks, worry so hard you fail a midterm, and email him some more.

At the end of the three months, when he’s supposed to be coming home, you hear nothing. You think about asking Gamzee’s dad for information, but the guy still terrifies you after fourteen years, and when he comes over for Thanksgiving his face is dark. You can hear his low rumble in the kitchen as he talks with your dad, and like any self-respecting good friend you duck down below the counter to listen.

“Boy’s got himself in a world of hurt,” Mr. Makara says, and your dad makes a questioning sort of grunt. “Got reached out to by them idiots they call professors at that joke school of his. Apparently he up and decided to pack his junk and leave with some locals back in some backwater village, France or somewhere. They ain’t got the knowing of where that boy is or what he’s doing.”

“You should sue for that,” your dad says, in his approximation of a whisper that carries very well. “It’s their responsibility to keep an eye on their students, they shouldn’t have let—”

“He’s eighteen,” Mr. Makara interrupts. “Well old enough to make his own stupid decisions, way I see it.”

“Eighteen, broke, in a foreign country where he can’t speak the language, and probably getting into some stuff, I’ve seen his emails,” your dad says, and you’d be boiling with rage over your invasion of privacy if you weren’t going numb. “Listen, between the two of us we could scrape together some money, go out there after him, bring him home. Karkat’s worrying himself into a coma, I’m afraid of what he’s going to do when he finds this out—”

“No,” Mr. Makara says, in a quiet voice that is impossible to argue with. “Gamzee done made his bed. He’s gonna lay in it for a while. When he’s ready to come on home, he’ll come.”

Your dad says something else, but you can’t hear, because you’re sneaking away to go…somewhere. Anywhere. To your phone, maybe. Maybe to email Gamzee again and tear him a new one for being such an idiot, maybe to look into how much a ticket to France is, how much you can get in a signature loan, maybe to cry. Maybe all of it.

Another month stretches by with no word. You managed to pass all your classes, scraping by in most of them, not looking forward to the next semester and still unsure of what you’re gonna major in, what you’re gonna do with your life. There’s an empty spot at your Christmas table that keeps drawing your eyes, an empty spot nobody is talking about. You’ve done your very best to keep up a good face in front of your other friends. You hope you aren’t worrying them. But without Gamzee, without that vital piece of you…you don’t even taste your dad’s famous scallop potatoes. Mr. Makara keeps glancing at you, you can feel it, and you are so tired of putting up a good façade. You’re tired and nobody could even begin to understand.

“I’m going to Europe,” you hear Mr. Makara say quietly to your father later as they clean the dishes. “Reckon the boy’s been silent too long.”

“I should really punch you in the face for waiting this long,” your dad retorts, and Mr. Makara snorts. “Kurloz, he could be anywhere. We haven’t heard a peep from him in months now.”

“I’ll find him,” Mr. Makara says, and his voice is darkly confident. “It’s in the blood, Kankri. The wandering, the lust for something wild, something crazy…it’s in the blood. I’ll find him.”

You aren’t sure how to feel anymore. You know your dad wants to take you to see a therapist. You swear at him, and he swears back, and you take your meals in your room and ignore him when he tries to come in to apologize. Your manager has talked to you three times about how you’re slacking at work. Your grades are abysmal. Gamzee never replied to your emails.

The day your door busts open and Sollux, Dave, John, Terezi, and Jade all pour into your room, you haven’t showered in about three and your phone is somewhere on the other side of the room with a cracked screen. They pull you upright, and Terezi wrinkles her nose and says to dump you in the bathtub, and between the five of them you’re forced to clean yourself, get dressed, and go with them to the movies. You don’t want to go. You hate them a lot for disturbing your misery. But it’s a new romantic comedy and they take you for burgers afterwards, and you smile and laugh and feel a little bit more human, being around other humans who apparently care so aggressively for you. When you get home you hug your dad but don’t say anything, and neither does he.

Mr. Makara texts your dad that he’s home two or three weeks later. You’re preparing to fail your midterms, even with Jade sitting in your room coaching you through the study guides, and you don’t mean to see your dad’s texts, he just left his phone on the counter when you call for a break to get some food. You show it to Jade, who looks at you, and says that your midterms are coming whether or not Mr. Makara has any news and to get your nose back in your books. You tell her okay, but your entire mind is shot and she seems to get it after another distracted hour. She hugs you, says it’s gonna be okay, and leaves.

Your dad comes in to break the news the next day. You know something is up when you get home from work, because your dad is perched on the edge of the couch, his solid face creased and those big dumb eyes you inherited pained and crinkled on the edges.

“What?” you ask. “Did someone die?”

“No,” your dad says, too cautiously. You drop your keys on the coffee table. “Son…sit down, for this, okay?”

Your teeth grind, but you do. You’re vibrating with anticipation, but not the good kind. Apprehension, maybe? You don’t know, you’re failing literature right now. “What’s up?”

“Kurloz went overseas to find Gamzee a couple of weeks ago,” your dad says, and you nod. He doesn’t look surprised that you already know. “And it took him a few days to find him. Gamzee is in really bad shape right now, and I don’t want to sugarcoat it, so here’s the story as far as Kurloz has been able to piece together: a few of Gamzee’s classmates back in October persuaded him to come with them on unsanctioned outings and on one of those outings, he was introduced to…certain substances.” At your eyebrow-raise, your dad shrugs. “We don’t know yet what all he has in his system. But according to Kurloz, Gamzee got hooked on whatever it was, cocaine probably, and started slipping away from his instructors to go back to the places he got it from in the first place. After a few weeks, he ran away from his group, sold everything he could for some pocket money, and…well, he’s malnourished, was homeless for what looks like weeks, bruised from head to toe, so high he didn’t even recognize his own father, and he’s…messed up, son, he’s really sick.”

Your gut bottoms out. Drug addiction is one thing, you could help him through that no problem. But drug addiction on top of being in a foreign country, starving, being beaten, dirty, living on the streets…your own problems all seem really petty now. Being mad because he never got in touch with you? Who cares? Unsure of what to do with your life, feeling left behind and forgotten by most of the people in your life, probably clinically depressed? Big whoop. Gamzee’s life is one unhealthy romance and consumptive outbreak away from being a bad musical, and you can’t even be happy that he was found at all.

“Where is he?” you ask. “When can I see him?”

“Hospital, currently,” your dad says. “And not for a while, Karkat, he’s still not lucid enough to even realize he’s back in the States. Whatever he had in him, he needs to get it all flushed out and then at least gain some weight back.” Every part of you is screaming that he needs you, he needs you, and your dad lays his hand on your knee. “I know how much he means to you, kiddo, but trust me on this: you don’t need to see him like this right now. Not after all you’ve been through.”

“All _I’ve_ been through?” you say, and stand up. “I’ve been pouting and pining for six months, what do you mean all I’ve been through? He could be dying, and I can’t even see him?” You can feel your neck and cheeks flushing but your hands feel oddly cold, and it’s a bad sign, you know it is, but you keep going. “I don’t care what he’s done, I want to see him. I want to see him now.”

“Karkat—” your dad says, but you snatch your keys off the table, already heading for the door. Dad calls your name again, and you don’t hear, don’t listen, until there’s a hand around your wrist jerking you to a stop. You react, trying to yank your wrist away, fighting, and he’s saying something, but it doesn’t matter, doesn’t he see how much it doesn’t even matter, Gamzee needs you, he needs you—

“Karkat!” your dad roars, and shakes you roughly by the shoulders. You realize you can’t feel your legs all of a sudden, and your head feels hot, too hot. “You can’t see him right now. There were infections in his lungs, he was probably on an overdose when Kurloz found him, he’s—it took the better part of two weeks for him to be well enough to fly, he isn’t okay, alright? He’s not okay, and he doesn’t need you right now. He needs rest, and he needs treatment.”

You fixate on “he doesn’t need you.” Of course he doesn’t need you, nobody needs you. He hasn’t needed you in months. Nobody ever really needed you, did they? Probably just humoring you, just hanging around because they felt sorry for you, look at Karkat, can’t even get his life together, poor guy, isn’t it so sad—

You can hear him saying your name but it’s hard to breathe all of a sudden, hard to stand—your legs wobble, your eyes hurt, you’re gulping in air and suddenly crying so hard you can’t make any noise at all, and your body just buckles under it all. You think your dad caught you, carried you to the couch somehow, your face is pressed against his collarbone and you _sob_ , you can’t believe this, can’t believe any of it. Your dad has you bundled up against his chest, you’re a grown man and you’re still so small, rubbing circles on your back, making quiet shushing noises, telling you it’s okay, it’ll be okay…

You don’t know when you come down off your panic attack, how long it’s been, but your throat is raw and your dad’s shirt is soaked, and he never stopped making soothing noises and gently running his hands over your back and hair. You should be embarrassed, and part of you is. You’ve had anxiety attacks like that before, but not to that degree, not quite that debilitating. Maybe your dad’s right, maybe you do need a therapist.

“Gamzee has a long road ahead of him, son,” Dad says gently. Another sob threatens to heave its way up. “When his doctors and his father say it’s okay, we’ll go see him. Promise. The second it’s okay.”

It’s not what you want to hear, but it’s enough.

Your insides are squirming uncomfortably about four days later, when your dad wakes you up and says you’re going to the hospital now. He talks to you during the car ride, you pick up on key words like “cocaine” and “heroin” and “detox” and “pneumonia”, but you’re trying your best to keep your mind as empty as possible. You don’t know what you’re going to do. You don’t know what you’re going to say.

“—about four kinds of them nasty narcotics in his system, most likely there were more,” a voice rumbles, a voice you recognize as Mr. Makara. “The weakness runs in the blood, y’know. Been rough on the withdrawal binge, but worst thing now’s the lack of meat on his bones.” You look up, and Mr. Makara, looking out-of-place with his face paint and his striped pants in the grey of the hospital, looks back down at you. “Reckon he needs a friendly face, littlest brother.”

You look at your dad. He gives you a thin smile and a nod. You look at the door, at the number next to the door, at the doorknob, at the floor, and mentally slap yourself. Get it together, Vantas. If he doesn’t need you now, he will soon, and you’ve gotta be the strong one here. You square your shoulders, reach out, and open the door.

The first thing you notice is that his hair has been cut recently and not well. Bits of it just look hacked, others too long. But staring at his brittle-looking hair is another distraction, and you look down at his face. He was always a skinny jerk, but now he’s skeletal, his dark skin stretched and waxy over his face, ashen in places and definitely yellowed from healing bruises. His arms look pitifully thin with needles in them, the bed extended to accommodate his height, and his eyes are open. They’re hazy, probably from all the stuff he’s been through, maybe from pain medication, and he looks away when he sees you looking back. Neither of you say anything. You sit down in the chair next to his bed, and he is very pointedly not looking at you. There are a million things you’re bursting to say—how could he be so stupid, where was he, why did he get rid of his phone, why didn’t he tell you what was going on before he went crazy—but you don’t say any of them. You stare at his hand, the dirty long nails and skin pulling away from the beds, busted over the knuckles and then taped-down needle probably pumping much-needed nutrition into his body. Or maybe it’s monitoring him. You don’t pretend to know how drips work in hospitals.

Neither of you speak for several minutes. You’re grasping for something to say, trying for anything at all. He isn’t looking at you. In fact, he’s actively turned his head away, as if he can’t stand the sight of you. Or…once you get your raging self-hatred under control…like he can’t stand you looking at him.

“Hey,” you say, your voice rusty. Gamzee flinches. “So. You’re home now.”

He doesn’t say anything. You settle back in your chair. “You look terrible, by the way,” you say, hoping that if you just keep talking maybe something good will happen. “Europe must really suck. Uh. But here sucks too, so. There’s that.” You chew your lip, hear the muted bass of Mr. Makara on the other side of the door, the answering loud tenor of your dad. “I’m probably gonna fail out of community college. School sucks more than I thought it would. Eridan won’t stop posting pictures of his frat buddies chugging beers in their Bermuda shorts, so I guess it isn’t bad for everyone. Some of the gang visit on the weekends, so that’s good.” Your voice is starting to wobble. Not good. “I’ve still got your Christmas present, if you want to see it. I mean, not with me, I didn’t have time to grab it, but I could bring it by. Later. If. Um. If you want.”

“Okay,” Gamzee says, his voice gravel. “That’d be most kind.”

Uncomfortable silence falls. You can feel everything pulsing in your chest, threatening to bust out your mouth, threatening to overwhelm both of you with your invective and hurt feelings. You scramble for a neutral topic. “Did…did you keep any souvenirs? From before you went off-the-rails insane?”

“Sketchbook,” Gamzee says, and you blink. “Kept the sketchbook.” His head settles back against the pillow, and then he finally looks at you. His face is buckling like he’s about to cry, and you see several tear tracks down the cheek you couldn’t see when he wouldn’t look at you. “Kept…kept the bracelet. The one what you gave me.” More tears escape his eyes. Yours are getting awfully bright and you fight it. “I’m…”

“You’re…” you prompt.

“Sorry,” he croaks, barely audible. “Karkat, brother, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…was just gonna be once, just to see, just to see what new colors it could show, I didn’t mean for it to take me away, bro, I didn’t mean to.”

“I missed you,” you say, and, well, if his face is gonna leak, so’s yours, you have no shame anymore. “No, I was _scared_ , Gamzee, you were gonna come back, and then we were going to see each other at Christmas and you’d show me all the pictures you hadn’t already sent me, and I’d tell you I was gonna transfer to a bigger school, make something of myself, but none of that happened, you disappeared and I’m still just a big nothing, you didn’t email me back and I wrote you so much, I missed you so much—”

“I know,” Gamzee mouths, and he needs a tissue but so do you, “I know, Karbro, I know it, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“You left me here!” you say, much louder than you mean to, but everything’s coming out loud now. “You said we were gonna be friends forever, you promised, and then you left me! You left, and everyone left, and I was—so alone—”

“I didn’t mean to,” Gamzee says helplessly, “I didn’t…I couldn’t…it just made me feel so good, bro, so shiny, like I could do anything, like I could be anything, I got lost following that demon, bro, and I want it, I still want it, I’d still dance like a puppet for it, but I don’t want to dance, I just wanna—just wanna come home, come home back to my dad, back to my Karbro—”

You hope you don’t mess anything up as you crawl up in Gamzee’s bed, curl your tiny ridiculous body around his upper half, and you cry into each other for a long, long time. It’s snotty and embarrassing and you are certain you’re not supposed to be doing this. But after probably an hour, you’re both cried out, and you’re gripping his fingers as tightly as you dare, because there’s no strength in his hands anymore. He feels like a straw man. He rests his head against your chest, his eyes closed, and if he’s asleep, you let him sleep.

You’re gonna force him to go to addiction recovery meetings. You’re going to scream at him, and he’s going to scream back. You’re going to hold his hand and just revel in that, revel that you can feel him again. Together you’re going to enter community college, try to salvage your grades, figure out what it is you even want. Probably one day you’ll get an apartment together, where you’ll invite all your friends over once a week for video game nights and Gamzee will routinely get destroyed by Sollux and Jade, and crack jokes with John and Terezi, and have bad rap-offs with Dave and Rose, and wink at Eridan and flirt with Tavros and be as Gamzee as he can be. You’re going to claw yourself awake in the middle of the night to hear his night terrors and hold him when he whispers how much he’s aching for a hit.

But now…right now…you’re going to let him sleep.


End file.
